


Absolution

by Davechicken



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-29
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2018-01-02 23:38:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They do not need to speak. They have said all the things that need saying. They have used all the words in all the languages that ever lived, and some that almost hadn't. Once they started, it became hard to stop: a stream of 'I'm sorry's that traversed the planet, that went back through time, that flew up to Heaven and down to Hell. 'I'm sorry' followed by 'I forgive you' and in the end all the syllables became just noise, became empty sounds for tongues and lips to curl around, the meaning long since divorced from the phonemes...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absolution

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ElDiablito_SF](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/gifts).



> You are to blame for all of this. You know who you are.

They do not need to speak. They have said all the things that need saying. They have used all the words in all the languages that ever lived, and some that almost hadn't. Once they started, it became hard to stop: a stream of 'I'm sorry's that traversed the planet, that went back through time, that flew up to Heaven and down to Hell. 'I'm sorry' followed by 'I forgive you' and in the end all the syllables became just noise, became empty sounds for tongues and lips to curl around, the meaning long since divorced from the phonemes.

They knelt together, face to face, hands curled in the space at the back of the neck, palms flat over beating hearts. All the words had gone, now, that they had used the last words they knew. He didn't remember when they went down to their knees, but it seemed oddly fitting. Genuflection. A show of submission. It was only show, for them, though: though a human would be unable to rise quickly and fight or flee... an angel and a demon could do so at any time without a second thought. Symbolic, too, was the hand on the neck: a vulnerable point on the frames they had stolen, but the animal need for survival didn't colour their positions in the same way it would for mortals.

All for show, the same as the words had been. It was impossible to truly express what they wanted, because for the immortal, the undying, the ceaseless there was no real fear of death.

No.

One.

Castiel lifted his right hand from the demon's breast and in a twirl of fingers he let the angel-blade shift to his grip. It was the only thing he knew he could use to show...

Crowley's breath quickened, his heart racing faster, but he stayed completely still in the angel's grip. He could vanish. He could flee. _Flee or die_. He could fight. He could resist. Instead - eyes still closed - he stayed there in the angel's embrace. 

Castiel used the tip of the knife to trace across the front of his throat, feeling the swallow underneath the metal, the way his body automatically responded. _Here_ was threat. _Here_ was submission. The knife stroked slowly lower, down towards his heart. One push in the right place and he could burn the very afterlife from this creature. Could rip him from the body he'd stolen long, long ago. But Crowley didn't flee, and Crowley didn't flinch. Castiel traced it lower, over skin they'd bared with just thought and need but left open and exposed to the world.

Crowley lifted his head slightly and Castiel could hear the breath in before the words that would follow, and he shook his head. No. No.

Crowley settled back down. Waiting.

Castiel flipped the knife and offered it hilt-first to his demon, dropping his head back and offering his throat. Crowley took the blade - question in his eyes - and repeated the swipe over the angel's jugular. So close. So close to death. He knew he would not do it, knew he was safer here than anywhere else in the world. Safer than Heaven.

The knife moved over his skin, and Castiel realised as it went, that it wasn't the most dangerous thing he'd done. It wasn't the most vulnerable he could make himself. It was not the last show of faith. Death was one thing...

...but it wasn't the thing he feared the most. And it was only by giving Crowley that that he would be free.

Castiel didn't fear death.

Castiel feared love.

He took the knife from Crowley's hands, wrenching it free. The demon didn't resist - when did he ever resist? - and he sent it skittering across the floor. 

_I am sorry_ he had said, a hundred times. He could say it a hundred more. It meant nothing, really, because it didn't express how _wrong_ it felt. Crowley had opened up to him and he had betrayed him. Crowley had opened himself up, and Castiel had ripped the heart from him and never yet given it back.

How did he say it? How did he express it? He could not. He _could_ not. It hurt like a knife through the heart. It hurt like losing that quiet faith in God. It hurt like... love.

The demon's eyes never left his, and Castiel found he could not look away. Could not. He begged him to understand. He was so very, very sorry. He could apologise every night until the end of time and it would never be enough to make up for his treachery. He could only offer him the only thing that meant something to him, the only weapon that could wound him. He could only offer his own heart in return for the one he had broken and give the demon the chance to do to him what he had done himself. It was the only justice left. It was right.

Castiel was in love with the King of Hell.

The demon watched and read and knew and understood. They had always understood. They had always been able to say more with their eyes than they had their words. Crowley knew him inside and out. Crowley knew how his dark, twisted mind worked. Cas was not so sure he was an angel after all, because no angel should feel the pride he had. No angel should feel the rage he had. No angel should have seen and done the things he had. Maybe he had fallen, after all, and he just wasn't aware of it? Did Lucifer ever know? Had Satan ever been able to tell the difference? Because this was Hell, right now. Laying himself open and giving Crowley the chance to ruin him. The pain inside his chest was so vivid it threatened to consume him.

All Crowley needed to do was leave, and Castiel would be destroyed. It was madness. It was insanity. He loved him so much that he couldn't imagine - didn't want to imagine - another day away. And all Crowley had to do... was leave.

Instead, Crowley's hand on the back of his neck tightened, and the demon surged up. Perhaps he would snap his neck, after all. Perhaps he would whisper a dark little 'thank you' for the gift of his heart and leave, ripping it from his chest. Perhaps this was it. The revenge. The justice. The payout.

Lips pressed to his temple, and Castiel shook with the strain of it. Any moment. Any moment and Crowley had the power to destroy him like no one else ever would, not even God. Soft skin that brushed against his face, trailing down to drink the tears that came from his eyes. He wept salt water - would have wept an ocean's worth - and felt the tongue that took them from his cheeks. Felt the burning line as Crowley worked down to his mouth. Their lips parted and he breathed in his demon, breathed him in like the oxygen he never needed. Crowley's tongue was too-hot, too-soft, too-right. It pushed over his own, writing those words (I forgive you, I forgive you) into his mouth.

Somehow, they fell softly backwards, the demon astride him never once breaking stride as he continued to kiss him as if nothing else mattered in the world. Nothing did. Nothing did but this, because without it Castiel would have been lost in mourning forever. He loved Crowley and he was afraid. He loved Crowley and Crowley loved him back. He loved.

Castiel submitted to the touches, because he belonged to Hell. He welcomed every flicker of finger over his shoulders, welcomed the way it felt like the flames licked up to char him, pulling heat from his core to his extremities. Everything burned. Everything _blazed_.

Crowley's hands moved down to his hips and the angel flushed as he was pulled into place, legs parting though it felt like he was splitting more than his dignity when he did that. 

Crowley looked down at him - sitting up - the light behind him casting the faintest of haloes around him. He did not look like a demon. He did not look like the King of Hell. He looked like a creature lost to love, and Cas wondered up at him. They were not angel and demon, here. They were Castiel and Crowley, and that was all that mattered.

He nodded, and Crowley pushed into him. He was aware that normally this was not how congress worked, but neither of them were human, and Crowley was being gentle with him, from the lines around his jaw and his eyes. Cas let his body ease around the intrusion, let his vessel relax just enough to allow Crowley to enter, but still to greet him like an old friend in a tight embrace. It felt... good. It felt nice. The body clearly liked it, because all sorts of tingly-sparkly-twitchy things went on between his thighs, and more than that was the feeling of being _full_. They didn't need to do this. They didn't need to do any of it. But he wanted to. He wanted to show Crowley that he was welcome in his heart, wanted to let the demon know he would fight him no longer.

Crowley's mouth opened again to speak and Cas shook his head. He found Crowley's hands and laced their fingers together, using the ankles wrapped behind his lover's waist to pull himself further into his lap. Crowley's throat worked over the sounds he wanted to make, his eyes going briefly distant. Cas liked that. He liked the look of lost pleasure on the demon's face, so he did it again; arching up using the muscles of his legs and his back to grind slowly back down and squeeze the demon's cock deep inside him. Inside him. In his heart, he was. 

Castiel was so madly, insanely in love. He wanted to do this forever, if it would make Crowley make _that_ face. They should have done this long ago. _He_ should have done this long ago. He should have seen the writing on the wall:

 _:: mene mene tekel upharsin ::_

Pennies thrown into the scale, his heart weighed, his worth... split and divided between loyalties. He had served too many masters, when he should have served only one.

He gripped the demon's hands tighter and moved upright, twisting to kneel astride him, arms around his neck, bodies still coupled together. This position gave him power: gave him the ability to control their movements. Crowley's hands moved to wrap around his waist, but he didn't take advantage of his strength to lift him up and down as he was more than capable of. Instead he gazed up at the angel, looking as though he'd been given the greatest gift in the world.

Castiel did not feel like the greatest gift in the world, but he was happy all the same.

He rose up and fell down, letting his lover deeper into his heart with each movement. He loved him. He loved him so very, very much. He had been a fool; they both had. How could the Devil love an angel, after all? No... how could an angel love the Devil?

Perhaps he should have asked the other question: _how could they not_?

Crowley buried his face against Castiel's chest, and Cas stroked through his short hair, over the line of his neck, over the heaving in his shoulders. 

He was sorry.

Crowley's hands on his waist - never demanding, never taking, never insisting - and he was forgiven.


End file.
